Japanese Emperor expresses ‘deep remorse’ over WWII

On Saturday, Abe sent a ritual cash offering to Yasukuni Shrine for war dead but did not visit the shrine, seen in China and South Korea as a symbol of Tokyo’s wartime militarism.

The South Korean foreign ministry suggested that the visits and Abe’s tribute jarred with the grief and remorse the prime minister had expressed in his statement on Friday.

But Abe also said future generations in Japan “who have nothing to do with that war” should not be forced to apologize.

“Reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse over the last war, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never be repeated”, he said after a minute’s silence to remember the war dead. The actual surrender was signed the following month aboard the USS Missouri.

Resentment over invasion, occupation and atrocities by the Japanese Imperial Army before and during the war still bedevils relations between Japan and the East Asian countries seven decades after Tokyo’s surrender on August 15, 1945.

North Korea, with which Japan has no diplomatic ties, condemned what it called “an attempt of the Japanese rightist conservatives to hide its crime-woven past”. But Tokyo has resisted direct compensation to the victims, prompting activists and former comfort women to say Japanese leaders are avoiding officially acknowledging what happened.

South Korean president Park Geun-Hye Mr Abe’s speech “left much to be desired” and contained “regrettable elements”, but did not elaborate on what those elements were.

The shrine is dedicated to millions of Japanese who died in conflicts – but also includes more than a dozen war criminals’ names on its honour list and a museum that portrays Japan as a victim of American aggression.

Park said she would focus on his remarks Japan would uphold statements of apology made by previous cabinets over the country’s wartime conduct.

“Although a lot of difficulties remain, it’s time for us to march together into the future based on the right historical perspectives about the past”, she said in Seoul this morning.

The statement was closely watched by Japan’s neighbors, especially South Korea and China, and it was unclear whether it would satisfy them.

“It is an unpardonable mockery of the Korean people and an act of deceiving the global community”, said a spokesperson for Pyongyang’s foreign ministry.

Abe, 60, became Japan’s first Prime Minister born after the end of World War II when he began a one-year term in 2006. “We always reflect the past and we hate the horror of the war”, he said.

It marked a departure from a landmark 1995 speech by Tomiichi Murayama, which apologised for the colonial rule and Japanese “aggression” on the mainland.

Yet Abe also has sown doubts about his own commitment to the forthright reckoning with the past that he endorsed on Friday.